Jainas in History of Indian Literature

Author(s): Jinvijay
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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JAINAS IN INDIAN LITERATURE
scientific literature of the Jainas to the 3rd volume of my book. I am, however, fully aware that I was not able to do full justice to the literary achievements of the Jainas. But I hope to have shown that the Jainas have contributed their full share to the religious, ethical, poetical, and scientific literature of ancient India.
Here I only wish to give a short summary, a bird's eye view, as it were-of the most important contributions the Jainas have made to almost all departments of Indian literature. I do not intend to speak here of the sacred literature as far as it is concerned with Jaina worship and dogmatics. But even this sacred literature contains much that-apart from its importance for the history of religion-must be valued also from a literary point of view as part of the general literature of India.
$ 3) Ascetic Poetry and its Characteristic Features
In several books of the Jaina Siddhānta we find a number of texts, both prose and poetry, which belong to what I have called Ascetic Literature or “Ascetic Poetry”. I may be allowed to say a few words about what I mean by this term.
1 If I am not mistaken, Professor E. Leumann (Zeitsch
rift der Deutschen Morgenland, Gesellschaft 48, 1894, pp. 65 ff) was the first to speak of a "Parivrājaka Literature" though not quite in the same sense as I use the term "Ascetic Literature". See my lecture on "Ascetic Literature of Ancient India" in some problems of Indian Literature (Caloutta University Press, 1925), pp. 21 ff.